don't shit where you eat

It's about 4PM and I'm checking into the Guangzhou Riverside YHA, and so far its looking pretty good. Set right next to a park running along the river this hostel has a great foyer with couches, coffee tables and big floor to ceiling windows to sit back and watch the slow moving traffic go by. As soon as I drop off my bags in the dorm (which has an overpowring wet sock smell, most likely from the guy who left some soaking in the sink) and go back downstairs, I find some commotion going on in the front square. It turns out that a scene from a Chinese TV drama is being shot pretty much on the front door with everyone coming around to watch. From what I can gather, someone's been cheating on someone, then she gets beaten in public, but the handsome cop comes to the rescue...or something like that. I was secretly hoping that they might want some extras, but then again, I think most of the bystanders were wishing the same thing.

Guangzhou is a big city, known for its love of food. Strange, strange food. Its bustling with people, the air is full of dust and smog and there are all sorts of sounds and smells at all times of the day. Like most other Chinese cities I guess. As soon as I told Mike I was going there the first thing he said was "In Guangzhou they eat anything with four legs and its back faces the sun." Perfect since I can barely speak Chinese, not to mention read it, so ordering food is going to be interesting. The first few meals were mainly simple noodles and I could point to what I wanted in with them, and I'm guessing it was beef, or so they said. Again making some friends at the hostel we venture out to see the sights of the city and stumble upon a typical open air market for fresh produce. At first its all normal looking stuff - fish, meat, veggies. Then it's toads in a sack, pigeons in a cage, eels in a tank and my personal favorite - scorpions in a bowl, being swished around and prodded by old ladies with chopsticks before being pinched from the writhing mass and dropped into a smaller bowl to take home. Yummmm! I'll pass on that one thanks.

Working our way around and doing the tourist thing by foot is tiring, so we retire to a place called Shamian Island. It has old French and British Colonial buildings that were once embassies and commerce centres of the day. Great old trees line the street and everywhere we look there seem to be a bride and groom getting portriats done. Brides with jeans on under the dresses and grooms with sandals made to look like shoes. Fashion and sensibility at its peak. In China it seems there are public toilets conveniently located around town and this park is no exeption, so after a while I gotta go number one. As I come out I notice a door between the mens and ladies, and it looks like its the cleaners room and just as I'm walking away, my suspicions are confirmed when the cleaner comes out with a stool and a steaming bowl of noodles and sits right in front of her door, happily slurping away at her midday meal. I don't suppose she's ever heard the the term 'don't shit where you eat.'

That was Guangzhou day two. Day three was an adventure with my new Spanish mate Pau to a large park in the center of town. We get to this park only to realise that it is way bigger than we thought and walking is going to take a while. Alas, with nothing else really to do we set off and soon discover that this is no ordinary park. It is a childrens amusement park, excercise ground, fishing lake, dancing and singing stages, chess and table tennis, just all sorts of stuff going on. Kids are riding around on mini roller-coasters, motorised hippos and elephants with wheels under each foot like a mini parade float, and thats just the tip of the iceberg. Oldies are playing ping-pong on cement tables, and an entire corner is devoted to asian hacky sack. A couple of weights tied to some feathers and kicked from person to person. We give it a go and are useless. Put to shame by a few 50 year olds that make it look easy and get all tricky with the footwork. Enough of this public embarrrasment!! The journey continues through what lookes like getiatrics overwhelming a playground, but upon closer inspection the 'playground' is in fact colourful excercise equipment. Sit-up bars, waist twisty thingos, thigh rolleridoo, swing-a-leg-arounder and other clever stuff are all in use. In no mood for further excercise we walk away into a wall of high-pitched screeching/singing as some pair are trying to belt out Chinese opera to a less than enthusiastic crowd, but oddly enough clap and make no attempt to leave. Practicing for China Idol? YYYYEEEEEAAAAA CCCHIIIIII NIIIIIIII SSSSSOOOOOOOO WWWWEEEEIIIIIII...keep it to your homes I say.

The park is all good, but home time calls and for me its now 13 hours on a train to Nanning. I know Guilin was on the list, but it's equally far away, so I take the easier of the two options and head to where I can wash clothes, sleep in a room not smelling like socks and figure it all out from there.

Oh, and I'll try to sort some pictures to throw on here soon.